Physicist, recognized for her original work in nanotechnology and carbon molecules; Institute Professor and Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering, Emerita, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(1930– )
When I was young, we moved from Brooklyn to the Bronx, to one block from the Bronx House Music School, where my older brother had a violin scholarship. What happened ultimately was sad. My parents’ resources all went into that move, but my brother’s teacher, who was the reason we moved, died a few months after we got there. So people at the school recommended that we go to Greenwich House in Manhattan. That’s what we did, even though it was a long ride on the subway from the Bronx to downtown.
My brother was the talented one. He was very devoted to the violin and worked hard at it. He was also a good performer. He started playing violin when he was three, getting scholarships from that age on. I got a scholarship only because he had one. I think my parents and the school both thought I was going to be something like him, but I wasn’t. I loved music, but I always liked academics more, even though music became the gateway to opportunities I wouldn’t have had otherwise.
The kids growing up in our neighborhood didn’t normally leave the neighborhood. They just stayed there. Roosevelt High School was our district high school. It wasn’t too bad but it was just satisfactory. It wasn’t Hunter. I found out about Hunter High through the music school and the middle-class parents whose kids were there.
As part of my scholarship to Greenwich House, I ran errands for them and became a music critic, starting at about age eight. A couple of years later I saw the movie Fantasia, which made a terrific impression on me.
For everything that I did I had to write a report. That was good training for the future. Everything that I did there turned out to be pretty valuable, but who would have known that at the time? Even in public school, my teacher said to me early on in sixth grade that attending class would be a waste of time for me, so she gave me work to do for the school. I was like an administrative assistant, learning how to run things. And that’s been kind of useful in life too.
I had no help for passing the exams to get into Hunter High. The teachers told me, “Forget about applying. What they ask on the exam is nothing that we teach you here.” Which was true—but I learned it by myself, getting into Hunter High by having a perfect score.
The problem in junior high school was basically the behavior of the kids. The teachers had almost no time for teaching. They would just try to keep order, which wasn’t an educational experience. For instance, we were told to go to the bathroom at home before we went to school, so we wouldn’t have to go while we were there. It seemed that going to the bathroom was a bit dangerous because girls would get mugged there.
My mother was the breadwinner in the family. She started working at an orphanage, which was a twelve-hour-a-day job. She also had to travel to and from work, which made her days very long. So at age ten I took over the cooking for the family. My father had been emotionally destroyed by the events of the Holocaust and was a manic depressive. That was the diagnosis at the time, but I can’t really say for sure. My mother was very loving and my father loved me too, but he was very disturbed for a long time and couldn’t deal with reality. So it was tough on him but also tough on everybody else.
That particular kind of disease has ups and downs so when he was in the active mode he would be violent, which meant you had to stay away from him. Sometimes we just abandoned the house. My mother had a friend who lived on the east side in the Pelham Bay area, where the neighborhoods were much better. I used to seek refuge there. It was hard because Hunter High School was even farther away traveling from there, but despite that I recognized I was doing pretty well in school and that kept me happy. I’m still that way. I really like what I’m doing, in that I wake up in the morning excited about doing it. And I was that way when all this trouble was happening.
When you grow up like I did, you’re at a big advantage because you’re already taking care of yourself. You’ve been on your own. Nobody made it happen for you. You were making it happen yourself. So when you go to college or whatever you do, you have your own inner drive and confidence. I work in a man’s world. But … I’ve always worked in a meritocracy. And I’m still working productively—because I love doing it.
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Note: I saw Mildred Dresselhaus for the first time in Oslo, Norway, where she received the prestigious Kavli Prize for her original work in nanotechnology and carbon molecules. The king, Harald V, was present when Dr. Dresselhaus, in her acceptance speech, talked of her immense gratitude for the honor. She then announced that she was going to give her prize of $1 million to young scientists for basic research. She encouraged others to do so, as well. I was immediately taken with this brilliant person who had such a spirit of generosity.
A few months later, I took the train up to Boston to record a conversation with Millie, as she encouraged me to call her. We met at her offices at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she sat at her desk behind a mountain of papers. She apologized for working on some recommendations for students, which were due later that afternoon. The Bronx accent and down-to-earth manner were familiar to me. In the course of our talking together, Millie told me that she was less interested in the perks of seniority, such as a larger office, than simply doing the work that she loves.